The latest part of the Living Story now actually feels it’s picking up a bit of pace. After doing some more personal story quests we fought a couple of random ‘invasion’ groups; though it was pretty indistinguishable from the usual zone group events (in Wayfarer Foothills). Does ArenaNet need to make these stand out as different – e.g. use something other than orange for the cog mini-map symbol?

Tera – the guild I’m in appears to have imploded, they’re trying to rally so I’ll sit tight for now. Given the generally high level of grouping it won’t impact on my gaming that much other than wanting nice people to chat to. This is ironic timing since my next ‘Choosing MMOs’ post will be about the Friends & Family factor!

Finally unlocked the next little vignette of story for the Shieldwall Offensive. It’s good lore-rich stuff actually. Sadly screenshots would be spoilerific so I shan’t be posting any. I’m barely half way through so far so lots more to see!

The last point reminds me that World of Warcraft does have very good storytelling buried beneath the dailies and the end-game gear-grinds. It’s a shame Blizzard hasn’t adopted the concept of Rift’s Chronicles yet so non-raiders could do a solo mode version of raids to see the story (gear rewards could be minimal or non-existent, this is about experiencing the story).

Yes I know Looking for Raid (LFR) allows us to see the story from Raids with minimal difficulty but honestly what fun is it to experience story in any MMO when you’re surrounded by people ‘go-go-go’ing as they want to get to the next loot-piñata, erm I mean boss. A chronicle-style version of raids would also be a good training ground, in-game, for raiders to learn the basic boss tactics without having to sit watching annoying Youtube videos.